Posted: February 12, 2005

Athletics: Lagat Clocks #3 Mile All-Time Indoors

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

At last night's Powered by Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., two-time Olympic medalist Bernard Lagat ran the third fastest mile ever indoors: 3:49.89. The Kenyan from Nandi had hoped to break Hicham El Guerrouj's world record of 3:48.45 set in Ghent in 1997.

According to Peter Stubbs, an athlete manager who watched the race, Lagat closed with a 59 second quarter. "Nothing left," Stubbs said in a text message to RRW, citing Lagat's supreme effort to break the record. His 1500m intermediate time was 3:33.34, running on a standard 200m banked track.

Canadian Nate Brannen of the University of Michigan finished a distant second in 3:59.50.

Besides El Guerrouj, only Irishman Eamonn Coghlan has run faster than Lagat indoors. He ran 3:49.78 in East Rutherford, N.J., USA, back in 1983.